Roy Williams News

Many British screen stars may seem to have burst on to the screen as comparative unknowns, except to theatre devotees who knew them already from the stage. What follows is a list of five actors from five storied plays whom I managed to catch live before celluloid fame came to call.

Pitlochry Festival Theatre, The Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh in collaboration with Naked Productions have announced Sound Stage – a new immersive audio digital theatre which from late March will premiere 8 new plays written by amongst others Mark Ravenhill, Roy Williams, Timberlake Wertenbaker, and John Byrne.

Watch Clint Dyer and Roy Williams’ Death of England: Delroy beginning today on YouTube! Michael Balogun stars as Delroy.

Daniel Ward has been announced as the winner of the 51st George Devine Award for his debut play The Canary and the Crow, picking up a prize of £15,000. The Canary and the Crow is the coming of age story of a working-class black kid accepted to a prestigious grammar school.

Theatre503 announced US playwright and activist Pravin Wilkins as the winner of the 2020 Theatre503 International Playwriting Award. Pravin accepted the Award from his home in Pittsburgh at an online event attended Theatre503's community of writers, industry & friends, hosted by the theatre's Chair Erica Whyman and Artistic Director Lisa Spirling.

From a long list of 121 nominations, Theatre Centre, with Theatre503, has been announced as the National Showcase Organisation for London for this year's Achates Philanthropy Prize.

Five outstanding new writers from the UK, Australia and the US are the finalists for the 2020 Theatre503 International Playwriting. Ayad Andrews, Gina Stevensen, Pravin Wilkins, Safaa Benson-Effiom and Zoe Ashford Cooper were chosen from 1,719 scripts sent in from 45 countries.

The George Devine Award today announces its 2020 Shortlist of nine plays. Founded in 1966 in memory of the Royal Court's founding Artistic Director George Devine, the Award is recognised as one of the most prestigious in new writing and seeks to shine a light on a playwright of promise.

England will be entering its second national lockdown on Thursday, November 5 to help stop the spread of coronavirus, and thereby temporarily shutting down non-essential businesses. The National Theatre has announced that performances of Death of England: Delroy will be cancelled from November 5-28. 

Hampstead Theatre has announced the cast for Harold Pinter's iconic play The Dumb Waiter.  Due to popular demand the production has been extended and will now run from 18 November 2020 until 2 January 2021. 

The Black British Theatre Awards 2020 championed the artistic excellence and achievements of the black creatives and performers across all aspects of theatre. The program's first television broadcast on Sky Arts highlighted a cross section of some of the 2020 award-winners. 

Hurrah for the green shoots in our beleaguered industry. Lots of venues are mounting new shows and bringing back our favourites over the next few weeks and months - albeit with social distancing and safety measures in place. Here are some of the live theatrical goodies on offer.

TISM see sex less in terms of penetration, especially now they can't achieve it. As award-winning author of The Slap, Christos Tsiolkas, said so wisely after TISM explained to him their theories of the intertwined nature of patriarchal hierarchy and the reluctance of cis-gendered males to grasp a less phallocentric conception of pleasure: “Who are you guys? Piss off.”

The National Theatre has announced that Giles Terera will no longer be appearing in the production of Death of England: Delroy following emergency surgery.

The National Theatre is launching a new Podcast Series: That Black Theatre Podcast. Hosted by Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded PhD Student, Nadine Deller the podcast is a partnership between the National Theatre, The Royal Central School for Speech and Drama, University of London and the AHRC London Arts and Humanities Partnership.

Greenwich+Docklands International Festival (GDIF), London's leading festival of outdoor theatre and performing arts and the UK's first major festival of live performance to take place since lockdown, came to an end on Saturday 12 September.

Theatre Royal Stratford East today announce the selection of plays and the cast for 846 Live, which will be performed as part of the Greenwich+Docklands International Festival on Sat 12 Sep at the Royal Docks Learning & Activity Centre Basketball Court.

Adapted from the award-winning The Shape of the Pain (Scotsman Fringe First), this new short film created in isolation is a powerful and intimate insight into living with a rare, synesthetic chronic pain condition.

Today the National Theatre announces its commitment to begin creating new work again, with plans to resume socially-distanced live performances in the Olivier Theatre in late October. A new one-person play, DEATH OF ENGLAND: DELROY, by Clint Dyer and Roy Williams, will be directed by Dyer, and performed by Giles Terera. 

Theatre Centre, in collaboration with Theatre503, will present ImagiNation Festival, an exciting new online event, culminating their national storytelling project. Showcasing 19 short plays across three days, as well as live Q&As with the acclaimed writers, the Festival aims to broadcast a digital patchwork of the nation, using the recorded submissions from across the country to share a multitude of voices.